Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Dragon!

This is going to be a quickie, but it was promised, so here goes.

My daughter Aife had her first real Halloween this year and after years and years of making my own costumes, I was so excited to make one for her. She has a collection of my old stuffed dragons that she adores, so I thought I’d make her a dragon costume.

I bought a dragon costume pattern from Simplicity not thinking really too much of it, bought the fabric, then cut it all out (painstakingly – that takes forever!!) and realized that this dragon is not a dragon at all!

It has no ears. It has no wings. It has two sets of fins that are full of interfacing, and no fins on the back of the costume, because (I think due to CPSIA regulations) it has velcro up the back rather than a zip front like they all had when I was a kid.

So I get to work altering the pattern. I cut an extra set of fins from the contrast fabric, used the ears from another of the costumes in this pattern, cut them down a little smaller and folded them to stitch them on to the hood, and then cut a pattern for a pair of wings. I moved the zipper to the front, which meant altering the tummy piece.

All in all, I think my little sage and berry cotton velvet dragon costume was adorable! Sorry for the vague pictures – Kevin is still not keen on photos of Aife on the internet. But here’s one of me in a rainbow wig to make up for it.